Outline

An outline is to help organize your paper as well as organize your thoughts and
research.

When beginning an outline consider doing the following:

• Brainstorm: List all the ideas that you want to include in your paper.
• Organize: Group related ideas together.
• Order: Arrange material in subsections from general to specific or from abstract to
concrete.
• Label: Create main and sub headings.

For our outline we will do a topic outline. We won’t write complete sentences, but phrases
or single words to indicate our topic.

The following is an example of how an outline must be formatted. If you have a I, you
must have a II. If you have an A, you must have a B. If you have a 1, you must have a 2.

Place on this shell of an outline your possible topics for your outline.

I.

A.

B.

1.

2.

a.

b.

II.

A.

1.

2.

B.

1.

2.
III.

A.

1.

2.

B.

1.

2.

IV.

A.

1.

2.

B.

1.

2.

V.

A.

1.

2.

B.

1.

2.